Skinless
by Bialy
Summary: AU in which ghouls are the majority, humans the minority. Carla never expected to leave the Vault, let alone find what she has. It's a whole new world, not run by her kind anymore. And there are a lot of people who don't like that. F!LW/Gob. Ongoing.
1. And Into The Light

Disclaimer: I do not own Fallout New Vegas or any part of the Fallout franchise. I am not making a profit from this.

Note: For the kink meme. Written in an awkward style, so hope you can bear with me. Will deviate from the main plot at points, due to being an AU. Not sure where this is going. Come along for the ride, why don'tcha?

* * *

**SKINLESS**

**Chapter One: And Into The Light**

****x

The first thing I'm learning is that the world outside the vault is pretty much a wasteland. And that's exactly what my Pip-Boy says it is, updated after two hundred years of being underground, mapping out the way the world's changed. It's telling me (at least, I'm pretty sure it's telling me) that the weird, metal dome I can see in the mid-distance is some kind of settlement. So, yeah, I'm gonna strike out for that.

This is crazy. This is totally, totally crazy.

I've got no idea how I'm keeping calm right now. There is blood on me. I can feel it in my fucking shoes. There's some on my cheek, I'm sure of it, but I can't make myself wipe it off. I can't make myself touch it. I beat someone to death today - someone I probably would have got to known, as I got older, someone who probably had a family. I took my baseball bat - my fucking baseball bat, the one Dad and Jonah taught me how to use when I was six and I've kept safe ever since - to bash someone's brains in. I felt his armour splinter and his skull give way and oh God why am I thinking about it I'm going to vomit.

Ugh.

Okay, I'm shaking now. Shit. Okay, stop it, keep it together. Don't be that guy who keels over five feet out of the vault, c'mon.

I keep thinking about throwing the baseball bat away. I can't. It's blood stained and battered and I _can't_, because what if something happens to me out here? I don't know what...monsters could be out here. I don't know how to defend myself, and right now, my baseball bat of death feels a lot sturdier in my hands than a gun I don't know how to shoot.

Alright, I'm going to keep going. I could probably move faster if I put the bat away but fuck that noise. I can see miles in every direction, but there are rocks and hollows and anything could pop up at any minute and I cannot express the extent to which I'm not okay with that. I could probably also make better time if I didn't keep stopping every few seconds because of the noises out here. It's quiet, but there's these sounds that...I don't know. And then there's the lack of sounds. No machines. No pipes. I don't like it. This isn't home.

But I guess the vault isn't anymore, either.

Suddenly, the jumpsuit I'm wearing feels like a relic of a childhood I've just outgrown.

It takes a while, but I get there. I move carefully round the outside until I find what looks like a way in. A robot chirps at me - LOUDLY. I don't know what I say to it. I don't know if I say anything. The doors are big and heavy and it hits me that I'm going to have to butch up, massively, if I'm going to survive for ten minutes out here.

What hits me first is the smell. It smells of people, all pressed together in one small space, in a way the vault never did. You could smell that kind of thing at parties, and at assemblies, but here it's magnified a hundredfold, and this is every day, this is life, this closeness and craziness, and how the hell am I going to survive out here? The structure of the place is intense, and that's what I notice next. It's like nothing I've ever seen, in a book or out of it. The whole town - city? - is cobbled together out of metal and scrap, and it hits me that this is what people can achieve. More than vaults, more than learning, they can achieve _survival_.

And that's what my life is gonna have to be now. Survival.

I notice all of a sudden, now I'm done staring at the place, that someone is closing in on me. He's big, broad shouldered, and he lifts the brim of his hat and says, "Welcome to Megaton!"

And I pass out, because he doesn't have a face.

* * *

I wake up on a bed. It's lumpy and I can feel dirt and grime under my hands and neck, but it's definitely a bed. I open my eyes, and see that I'm inside...something. Somewhere. There are other beds all around me, so maybe communal barracks? The guy from before is sitting near my bed on a chair, and this time, I try not to freak the fuck out on him.

But when I say this guy doesn't have a face, I mean, like, he _doesn't have a face_. I can see his eyes and he seems to have...an eyelid and no, there's no nose and I can see the muscles in his jaw moving as he smiles at me. Like, I can see them tense and tighten because _there is no skin covering them_. I have no idea what I've walked into here. I have no idea if this is okay. I realise, for the first time, that I could have just walked into a settlement of _cannibals_ here and not realised it at all.

I take a shaky breath, and sit up.

He looks friendly, does the faceless man. He's got a duster on and a big star pinned to his jacket, the kind that they wore in the Old West to mark out the Sheriff. He's smiling, and he's holding his hands up, and I guess if he wanted to eat me or kill me he would have done it when I was unconscious, instead of putting me to bed and sitting patiently waiting for me to wake up.

I exhale, and think maybe I'm ready to deal with this.

"I just got out of a vault," is what my brain decides to run with as an opener. My voice is somewhere between crackly and squeaky, and I touch my throat. I hadn't realised how thirsty I was.

The faceless guy's smile stays in place. "Figured as much," he says, with a meaningful glance at my jumpsuit. "I'm guessing that's why you seem so shocked right now. Can't imagine they have many ghouls down in those places."

"Ghoul?" Even as I say it, I figure out it's the name for whatever this man is. But the name and the person before me don't connect up, so I let him keep smiling understandingly, and carry on.

"I'm Lucas Simms," he says. "Let me tell you a little bit about the Capitol Wasteland."

* * *

Alright then.

So, ghouls.

Huh.

Who'd have thunk?

Oh wow okay that water is _really_ irradiated. Blegh. Ugh.

God, this is really...the world. This is America, isn't it?

This is what's left.

* * *

I never realised...I never thought...

Life in the vault – the whole vault itself – it's just been...my whole life. Manufactured, structured. And out here, there's dirt and sky and night time and sunlight and everyone looks so _thin_.

And these guys...

These are the ones the radiation helps.

What's it like out there?

* * *

Okay, okay, so call me sheltered, but it's a lot to take in, you know? Lucas is gone and I'm pretty beat. My Pip-Boy's telling me it's only something like 2pm outside but it feels like I've been awake all night. I guess, not counting my prima donna fainting spell, I kinda have. Since Amata woke me up, things have been...

Yeah.

I'm just sitting here looking at my hands. I know what ghouls are, now, and I know how many of them there are. I keep wondering if, you know, if that's going to be. In a month. In a year. If my skin's gonna come off and my hair's gonna fall out and...am _I_ going to ghoulify?

Look, call me a bigot, whatever (yeah, Lucas explained _that_ little unsavoury part of the wastes, too) but I don't _want_ to...change like that. I like my skin. I've had it all my life. It's this crazy shit spinning through my head, because every time I think how much I _don't _want to start turning into a ghoul, I start thinking about how probably Lucas didn't exactly have his heart set on it, either. Or anyone.

He told me he had always wanted a kid. A son. Ghouls are infertile. He told me he would have named him Hardin.

This is a pretty shitty world, and I don't know why I think I expected anything different.

That's the thing, I guess. I didn't expect anything.

I never expected to have to find out.

* * *

A full hour of sloth and existential angst later and I think I'm about ready to move. Looking at the kind of clothes Lucas had on, my shrimpy little vault suit doesn't seem like the best attire to go traipsing about in. Maybe there's a shop in town?

...I don't have any money. Great.

Well, opportunities don't come to those who sit on their asses and contemplate the _theory_ of going outside. I get up, head outside, and pretty much head butt the chest of a man coming in the opposite direction.

I blurt out "ow!" because apparently I'm a precious little cherub who can't take a bump to the head in stoic silence. The guy steps back a little, his hands coming up to steady my shoulders. I don't know if I see his face or his hands, first, but it's enough – this guy has skin. He's human. He's _like_ _me._

"Careful there, lass," he says, his words rolling out in a pleasant accent I've never heard. "Don't want to wind up knocking yourself out again!"

Oh so apparently news travels fast in Megaton. But I like that he says _knock yourself out_ like I didn't just swoon into the radioactive dust. It means either Lucas is telling the story that way to save me face (good) or this guy is pleasant enough to overlook that and treat me like I'm not a freak (still good).

"I'm Carla," I say, sticking out my hand. "I just got out of a vault."

I decide right then that until I find my feet, that's going to be my standard greeting. Let people know what kind of idiot they're up against.

The guy takes my hand. He's big, broad. Looks older than my dad, with a white beard and his hair all slicked-back. His grip's firm and reassuring, and he smiles. "Colin. I work at the saloon." He gestures vaguely behind him, and I nod enthusiastically. Colin. Human. Good.

"Thought I'd come by and see how you were doing," he continues. He leans forward conspiratorially, and adds, "thought ya might like to see a familiar face, if you know what I mean."

"_Yes_," I say, with no little relief. I'm so glad. Him saying that, it kind of makes me feel less...weird? I mean, about not being totally...comfortable with the idea of ghouls. Yet. "Yeah. I walked into Mr Simms and just..." I wave my hand ineffectually. He gets it, I'm sure.

His smile widens. He's friendly, he's nice. And something about his accent is just really _comforting_. I keep getting the weirdest feeling I've heard it before, too, like when I was a kid. Maybe on an old holotape or something. His grip on my hand changes and he holds it like he's guiding me, and says, "Fancy letting an old man like me show you round the place?"

"Sure," I say. Lucas had offered, but amidst the whole 'most of humanity are now skinless mutants who live for centuries and treat irradiated ponds like hot tubs' speech I guess the idea kind of got buried. Colin releases my hand and leads my outside and away from the barracks, into the afternoon light of Megaton.

My second look at the city is even more impressive than the first. Now that I can see how different things are, the idea of this place being built from nothing is even more incredible. Colin begins to point out the sights, and that's when I notice the bomb.

I guess I must have been stuttering some kind of question at him because he says, "Ah. Yes. You've noticed our town's attraction, then."

"That's a bomb," I croak, eventually. "Is it...active?" He nods. I feel sick.

"Keeps us safe," Colin says. I'm about to tell him I'm really not seeing it, but he carries on. "Not many people out to raid you when there's that sitting in the middle of your yard."

"Yeah, they'll just sit back and let the bomb do its work!"

I must be getting a bit loud, because Colin tugs my sleeve and begins to mutter into my ear. It sound like nonsense at first, but then I realise that he's serious about there being a cult in town that worships the bomb. It starts to make more sense to me when I realise that, oh, wait, this town is filled with people for whom radiation is a pleasant glow. As long as it doesn't explode...

Yeah, I don't really feel better.

But Colin is already pulling me on, pointing out houses and waving at people he seems to know. Most of them are ghouls. In the whole tour, I see two, maybe three human being. The rest of the town has changed. By the time we stop outside the saloon, I've seen more internal anatomy than I thought I'd ever see short of taking up my dad's work, and learnt that if I need caps "Moira pays fair" but will "probably send me to a gruesome and untimely death". I've also learnt "never ask Nathan to tell you more about the Enclave", but that was a lesson taught the hard way.

"And here we are," Colin says, running the last two words together. "Home sweet home."

"You live here as well?" I ask him.

Something in his face turns a little bitter. "Where else?" he asks. Yeah, there's definitely something angry and cold in his tone.

"What do you mean –"

He cuts me off. "I'll take you in to meet the boss and a few of the locals. Just...don't piss him off, okay? He seems friendly, but..." He puts a hand on my shoulder, heavy with warning. "Just trust me okay, lass?"

I nod. "I won't piss your boss off, Colin."

He grins. "Good girl. Shall we?"

And with that, he pushes the door to the saloon open.


	2. All Around Was Skin and Bone

Disclaimer: I do not own Fallout New Vegas or any part of the Fallout franchise. I am not making a profit from this.

Note: For the kink meme.

* * *

**Chapter Two: All Around Was Skin and Bone**

****x

The smell of the saloon hits me straight in the face. I recognise alcohol, and sweat, but there are a hundred other smells in here that mean _nothing_ to me. It's barely been a day and I just have this thing chanting over and over in my head – _this isn't my world, this isn't my world, this isn't my world._

But it is, now, and I'm not fucking ready for that, okay?

The bar seems, like, maybe half full? It's mostly ghouls, but I can pick out a couple of people who seem pretty intact. There's a guy loitering near the bar, and a blonde sitting by the stairs. Oh, and there's another guy, sitting in the shadows and not looking at _all_ ominous. After that? It's me, and Colin.

A ghoul peels itself away from the counter and saunters forward. I don't know if it's the walk, the way the few remaining strings of red hair fall or the breasts, but I know it's a woman. When she talks, her voice rasps a little differently to Lucas'.

"Colin," she says, sinking into a hip. "Where've you been? We're getting busier."

Colin flashes her a smile. "Just meeting the new girl, Nova, dear. Thought she'd like to visit us here."

He gestures towards me, and I raise a hand awkwardly. "Hi," I say.

The woman – Nova – tilts her head and regards me critically. I'm about to decide whether to start feeling annoyed or nervous when she smiles, a twisted, mostly lipless thing. She holds out a hand and I take it without hesitation. The _last _thing I want is for these guys to realise how unsettled I am by all this shit. There is nothing in my last nineteen years I can reach for to help me deal with this place.

Nova's grip doesn't feel as slimy or squishy as I thought. Her hand is rough, and the texture of muscle is weird as fuck under my hand, but it's not _bad_. That, right there, takes a little of the panic out of me. It's like shaking hands with Stanley, only..._more_. Everything out here is _more_.

"She's new to the wastes," says Colin, and I wonder briefly if he wants to make that more cryptic. Nova casts an eye over my jumpsuit.

"You don't say?" Her rasp is dry, but friendly. She drags me forward, away from Colin (who's already started feeling like my only lifeline here) and up to the bar. "I'll get you a drink, on me. Gob, slide me a couple of Nukas, we've got a new smoothskin."

Someone straightens up from behind the bar. The guy, who I assume is Gob, who I assume is Moriarty's boss, looks even more incomplete than the other ghouls I've seen here. Something about his bearing and the look in his cloudy eyes strikes me as different, too. He looks more...in command. He looks older. He's holding two bottles of Nuka Cola, which he sets down and cracks open. He passes one to Nova and slides the other one in front of me before speaking.

"Sit down, smoothskin. Let's you and me get to know one another."

I take a seat at the bar, obediently. I can't shake the feeling that this guy has some kind of seniority here, so I figure it's a good idea to sit and listen. I feel someone draw up behind me, and look round to see Colin at my shoulder. He looks guarded, uncertain. When he sees him, Gob's face hardens.

"Moriarty. Toilet needs cleaning, isn't that your job?"

Something closes off behind Colin's eyes. "Yes, _boss_," he says, and yeah, there's definitely resentment in his voice. Something's going on here, but I haven't the faintest idea what questions to start asking, or to who.

"He, uh, he brought me here," I say, hoping maybe it will excuse his absence. If Gob is as much of a hardass as Colin said, I don't want his goodwill coming crashing down on his head. "He was showing me around the town."

"Yeah, I bet he was." Gob casts a look after Colin as he disappears into a room behind the bar, and for a second, something very ugly flashes in his eyes.

Nova drops onto a stool next to me, nudging me with her shoulder. "So come on, smoothskin, what's your story? We don't exactly get many Vaulties blinking in the sunlight round here."

Gob leans on the bar, smiling, that glint of ugliness gone. "Yeah, everyone I ever met out of a Vault had some story about leaving. Some fairytale of what they expected to find out here. What about you, kid?"

"I...didn't really get much of a choice in the matter," I begin. "I woke up – got woken up – really early this morning by my friend, and then Vault security was after me, and then –" I break off. I remember the feeling of the bat in my hands; the wood, the weight, the way you have to swing it different when you're hitting _down,_ and I remember not stopping. I really, really remember not stopping. "I killed O'Brian. With a bat. And I got out of there. Amata – my friend – she said it was because of my dad. That the Vault wasn't supposed to be opened, but my dad had opened it, that he'd gone –"

I can't make it any further. It hits me, all of a sudden, how homeless and aimless and _orphaned_ I suddenly am. I went to sleep safe, figuring what happened today was going to be the same as any other day, and now...

Gob is frowning at me. "Your dad left the Vault last night? What is he, tall guy, greying hair, lab coat?"

I feel my jaw drop. "Yes. Yes! That's him. Did you see him? Is he here? What happened? Why did he leave?" I launch forward, grabbing Gob's wrists. "Where's my dad? Tell me!"

Gob raises what's left of his eyebrows and slips his hands away from me. I feel Nova's hand on my back, guiding me down into my seat. I try to relax. Shouting at these guys is not going to help anyone.

But the suddenness of it, of my realisation that I'm not completely cut off out here, is incredible. _Dad_. I can find him. I can make things right.

"Please," I say, trying to keep my voice level. "Please, Gob, Nova. He's the last thing I've got left."

"He came through here," Gob confirms, and my heart gets knocked up to somewhere in the region of my throat. "He was here last night, stayed just a couple of hours. He only came into the Saloon for a few minutes, just to ask if we had any Stimpacks. I sold him the ones we had in, and he left."

"Do you know where he went? Did he say what he was doing?"

Gob shook his head. "It must have been after midnight. Bet most people didn't even see him. He asked where else was open, and I told him, maybe the Brass Lantern, but he said he'd been there." He sighs, scratches his neck. He looks honestly remorseful when he says, "I'm sorry. He only stuck in my mind 'cause we don't get many smoothskins around. If I'd known he'd drag his kid out here after him, I'd have tried to make him stick around."

I can feel myself visibly sag. "So you...you've got no idea where he went?"

"I'm sorry, kid."

I drop my head into my hands. For a second, I thought I'd had something. A plan. A chance. How the fuck am I going to survive out here, what am I going to _do?_

"Wait, hang on. Didn't Moira stay open late last night?"

I sit up. Nova is frowing, pressing a hand to her head like she's trying to remember something. "Gob. Is it tonight or was it yesterday? She got some...samples, something, I don't know, she said she was going to work through the night so if we needed anything..."

Gob snaps his fingers. "You know, she did. He mighta gone there. That's it, then, kid, you wanna check with Moira."

"Moira?"

Nova stands up. "She works at Craterside Supply, just round the corner. I'll take you there now, okay? We can see if she met your old man."

I get to my feet, nodding. "Yeah. That would be – that's great. Thank you so much."

Gob picks up the untouched Nuka Colas and gives Nova a half critical, half amused look. "I'll just hang onto these, then."

She laughs, and grabs the sleeve of my Vault suit. I'm already getting okay with the touching, I notice. "Thanks, Gob. C'mon, kid – hey, what's your name?"

"It's Carla," I say, as she hauls me towards the door. "I'm Carla."

* * *

Craterside Supply is a small shack which, as its name hinted at, sits on the side of the crater formed by the bomb's impact. It's got a run down, homely feel, and Nova pushes open the door calling out "Moira! Got a visitor for you!"

Moira (who is, surprise surprise, a ghoul) emerges from someplace around the back, and smiles the widest I think I've seen anyone ever smile. Her accent's weird, not weird like Colin's, but weird, as she blurts out a string of 'hellos' and rushes forward.

She grabs my hand. Nova squeezes my shoulder reassuringly and I figure this is normal behaviour for Moira. She studies my hands and while she does, I study her. She still has most of her hair, and her skin isn't as badly peeled off as Nova's, and nowhere near as badly as Gob's. Maybe...maybe it affects people differently? It doesn't affect everyone, I know that much, but...

There is so much more to know here before I even start feeling comfortable with it.

Moira's eyes reach my face and she lets out a little yelp of recognition. "Oh! Are you James' little girl?"

I practically yank my hands out of hers in shock. "Yes! James, my dad, was he here? Do you know him?"

"He came in last night!" she tells me chirpily. "I sold him a few supplies and he asked a few questions. Said he noticed there were a whole lot more ghouls out here than he remembered! I guess things change in twenty years, huh?"

I blink a couple of times, like that's going to clear up my ears or something. But I can't be hearing this right. "No, you must have got him wrong. He's never been out here before."

Moira looks confused. "I don't know about that. He seemed to know his way around things out here, wasn't shocked to see the state of us here or anything. He remembered Mr Moriarty back from before things started changing, and –"

"Wait." I hold up my hand, my mind reeling. Dad left the Vault? Dad knew Colin? Why hadn't he, why hadn't Gob -? "Slow down, Moira. My dad – he knew Colin? Colin Moriarty, right?"

She nods. "Yup, that's who brought him in here to see me. I sold him some supplies, filled him in on what the traders told me about some of the settlements nearby."

"Did he say where he was going?" Please, please let him have said where he was going.

"I think he was going up to Galaxy News Radio. It's in DC, though, and I did worry about him getting there safely. He told me he'd be fine, though, seemed awful sure about it so I just left him to go on his way!"

I'm out the door before Nova can stop me. Maybe I'm being rude, maybe I'm losing my mind, but I don't care. The saloon's not far, and I'm up the ramps and inside before she can catch up with me. Colin is by the back wall, and Gob's behind the wall.

"You spoke to my father? You knew him?"

Colin looks up as I get close, looking surprised. "Your father?" His face is blank, and then, suddenly, lights up with realisation. "James? James is your father?"

"Someone else was here from the Vault and you didn't think to _tell_ me?" I can hear my voice rising in pitch, and feel myself losing it. I feel _betrayed_. I've got no idea why I'm latching onto this so strongly – maybe because he's human, maybe because he was kind – but I feel sick and angry and stupid. "You _knew_him?"

"Hey, calm down," Gob says, and I feel his hands on my shoulders. I shrug him off sharply. Calm down? In the last twelve hours, I've been abandoned by my father, become a murderer, lost the only place I've ever called home, found myself in a town full of _zombies_ and been hit in the face with what is starting to feel like a really unpleasant truth. Calm is just about the last fucking thing I'm feeling. I wheel on him.

"Did you know? Did you know Colin knew him?"

Gob holds up his palms. "No. What the fuck, no. We told you what we knew, Nova and me. But kid, calm down, or –"

"Stop telling me to calm down!" I shove him away, so _very_ aware of how much of a tantrum I'm throwing right now, but not caring. Everyone is staring at me, the whole bar, a dozen pairs of cloudy eyes and how _dare_ they, how dare _anyone_ in this town of _freaks_ stare at me and judge me and treat me like an idiot, it's _not_ my fault, I never _chose_ my life –

My feet are working of my own accord, and when my head clears from the rage building up in my brain, I'm glad of it. I'm running, and before I know it, I'm at the doors. I get through as quick as possible, out into the wastes, and I run, and I run, and I run.

_Twenty years ago?_ That would mean I wasn't born in the Vault. That it wasn't home. That he _lied_ my whole life. What about my mother? Is she even dead?

He _left_. Like hell he thought I'd be safe, how could he leave me there, with people who tried to kill me? He told me _nothing_ about what it's like out here, never had the balls to own up to whatever it is that's the truth of this whole pile of shit, and now, now...

I don't know where I'm going. It's stupid, suicidal. But I'm angry, I've spent so many years _angry_ and _penned in_ with nowhere to go, and now it feels like every atom of rage is pouring out of me, thundering into the ruins under my feet. Every time Butch and his cronies made fun of me, every time I felt left out or odd or broken, every rule, every refusal, every wall of my _tiny little fake world_ – everything is just crashing, crashing, crashing.

I run and run until I can't breathe anymore, and then I collapse, in the shell of an old house, and I just cry.


End file.
